World War: Battleship Arms Dealers

The soldiers' backs gradually straightened.

"This mission isn't to fight a war—at least not to initiate one. We're going to erect a pillar, a pillar that tells the world, 'This belongs to Lanfang.' We'll use tracks and wheels to carve a road through the desert. We'll use shovels and cement to build a fortress in the wasteland. We'll use this—" He patted the machine gun on the jeep, "to tell anyone who wants to pull down the flag: think carefully about the price."

Zhao Dengyu jumped off the hood and walked to the jeep at the front of the line. A neatly folded red flag with a gold dragon was stuck in the jeep.

"I have only one request: upon reaching our destination, raise the flag high, so high that it can be seen through binoculars from fifty kilometers away. So that British generals a hundred kilometers away will have to mark a new symbol on their battle maps—not the Ottoman crescent, not the British Union Jack, but our Lanfang dragon flag!"

He took a deep breath: "Now—let's go!"

The order was relayed through the radio. The roar of engines suddenly intensified, and the first jeep drove out of the base gate, its two headlights piercing the darkness.

The convoy, like a giant steel python, slowly crawled out of Dubai. Along the way, awakened citizens stood in their doorways, wrapped in their coats, silently watching the army depart. Some raised their hands, some held their children, and some whispered prayers for safety.

Inside the truck bed, soldiers clutched their rifles, swaying with the bumps and jolting. No one spoke. Dust kicked up by the wheels seeped in through the gaps in the canvas, quickly covering everyone's faces with a layer of yellowish-brown.

Reconnaissance Battalion Commander Li Guosheng sat in the second jeep, spreading out a marching map. His flashlight beam fell on the point "Holdessa"—on the map, it was just a small circle surrounded by a large blank area marked "desert, no water source".

"Commander," the second lieutenant driving couldn't help but ask, "Are we really going to be stationed there permanently? I heard that place is so barren that even grass doesn't grow there."

Li Guosheng put away the map: "That's why they sent us. Do you think we'd get a good spot?"

"But... a single division, facing hundreds of thousands of British troops..."

"The division commander said we're not going to fight," Li Guosheng said, looking out into the endless darkness. "We're going to stand guard. Like a guard standing at the door of someone's house. We don't necessarily have to fight, but we need to let passersby know—this house is home, and we're not to be messed with."

The lieutenant seemed to understand, but not quite.

As dawn broke, the convoy had already traveled 100 kilometers from Dubai. The sun rose over the Persian Gulf, turning the desert golden. The long convoy wound its way through the dunes, the dust kicked up by the vehicles resembling a giant yellow dragon in the rising sun.

Istanbul, the day after the signing.

General Falkenhayn stood on the balcony of the German Embassy, ​​gazing at the Ottoman Naval Headquarters building across the Bosphorus Strait. The Ottoman crescent flag on the building's roof hung limply in the morning breeze, the flagpole leaning slightly, yet no one seemed to be repairing it.

"General," the adjutant delivered the telegram, "urgent telegram from home. The General Staff has, as requested, assembled a 'Special Vehicle Research and Development Department' of 120 engineers, led by Dr. von Groth of Krupp. In addition, MAN reported that the first batch of 30 truck chassis have been modified and are ready to be fitted with armor at any time."

Falkenhayn did not answer the telegram: "When will the ship carrying Lanfang's technical data arrive?"

"Twenty-five days, if the weather is good."

"Too slow." The Chief of the General Staff frowned. "Send a telegram to the Navy Department, ordering two destroyers to provide escort to Hamburg. Tell the captains that the cargo on that ship is more valuable than their lives."

"yes!"

After his adjutant left, Falkenhayn continued to gaze at the strait. An old Ottoman cruiser slowly passed by, its hull rusted and its deck sparsely populated with sailors. This was once a formidable weapon in the Black Sea, but now it resembled a moving piece of scrap metal.

He recalled what Chen Feng had said to him privately after signing the agreement: "General, tanks are just tools. What truly changes the course of the war is the new tactics for using those tools. The German army needs a revolution in thinking—a shift from trench warfare to a breakthrough mindset that combines mobility and firepower."

Ideological revolution. Falkenhayn pondered this term. He knew it all too well. But breaking the trench warfare model that had persisted for three years meant overturning countless established experiences and offending countless conservative generals.

Two thousand men were dying every day on the Western Front. The Verdun meat grinder had already swallowed the lives of three hundred thousand young Germans. The Somme was still bleeding.

There was no other choice.

He turned and went back to his office, spreading out the battle map. A pencil circled the western front: "Between Arras and Cambrai, the terrain is relatively flat, suitable for armored assaults. If we could have three hundred tanks… no, two hundred would be enough. Concentrate them, tear open a ten-kilometer-wide breach, and then cavalry and motorized infantry follow…"

He was engrossed in his calculations, completely oblivious to the fact that outside the window, the Ottoman Empire was slowly collapsing before his eyes.

At the same time, in Dubai.

Zhang Haitao, the captain of the cargo ship "Poyang Lake," stood on the bridge, watching dockworkers use a gantry crane to load the last batch of precast concrete components onto the ship. Those were the walls and roofs of bunkers, precast in the factory and ready to be assembled on-site.

"Captain," the first mate approached, "all cargo has been loaded. Eight hundred tons of heavy artillery shells, three hundred tons of engineering machinery, five hundred tons of prefabricated components, and six months' worth of rations, medicine, and fuel. The draft is 0.8 meters greater than designed, but still within safe limits."

Zhang Haitao nodded: "The weather forecast?"

"The Persian Gulf will be calm for the next five days. However, once you exit the Strait of Hormuz and enter the Gulf of Oman, you may encounter the tail end of the monsoon, with waves reaching two to three meters high."

"It won't affect navigation." The captain glanced at his watch. "Inform the engine room that we will depart in one hour. The route is as planned: Dubai—Strait of Holmes—Gulf of Oman—Northwest coast of the Persian Gulf—Holdessa anchorage. Maintain a speed of twelve knots; we expect to arrive in five days."

"yes!"

Just as the first mate was about to leave, Zhang Haitao stopped him: "Wait. The Navy has specifically instructed us that our ship might be targeted by British warships. Tell everyone to maintain radio silence and to implement blackout measures during nighttime navigation. If questioned by British ships, say we are a civilian cargo ship carrying 'commercial exploration equipment'."

"clear."

An hour later, the "Poyang Lake" and "Dongting Lake" slowly departed Dubai Port. The two 10,000-ton cargo ships sounded their horns, the sound echoing in the bay.

On the dock, Liu Yongfu watched the ship sail away, then turned to the engineer beside him and asked, "Did you bring all the blueprints for the Hurdesa base?"

"Everything's here, Minister. It includes the deep-water wharf plan, the freshwater purification plant design, the power plant layout, and... the preliminary oil well exploration plan."

Liu Yongfu looked northwest and seemed to be able to see the desert 1,200 kilometers away.

"The President is certain there's oil underground. Our mission is to extract it, refine it into oil, and fill the fuel tanks of the Lanfang warship." He paused. "And the army brothers' mission is to ensure that no one dares to cause trouble while we're extracting the oil."

The engineer whispered, "Minister, will the British really just stand by and watch us raise our flag right under their noses?"

Liu Yongfu smiled and said, "Then let's see who has the bigger guts and the stronger resolve."